Xequecal wrote:
Obvious moral issues aside, there's also the problem of reconciling the state's military needs with the volunteer pool.
If there are too many volunteers, where do you put them? Do you just deny them outright? Or do you make it a competition where the only the best potential soldiers get to join? That turns it from a "willing to sacrifice for society to get to vote" system to a "voting rights are handed out based on killing ability" system. If you just assign them to desk jobs or charity work or whatever, that probably won't sit well with the people who are actually risking their lives, not to mention causing an efficiency problem as so many able workers aren't doing anything productive.
You clearly have not read the book. The Federation gives the franchise for 2 years of Federal Service, not 2 years of
military service, that service to meet the capabilities of the person doing it, and is often dangerous in ways other than combat. As to the efficiency problem, as long as the basic needs of the people in question are met, there's no need to pay them; what they're earning is the right to vote - and at a relative bargain price; 2 years' service is significantly less than a typical enlistment right now. That high turnover also helps solve the "too many volunteers problem", and provides a large inactive reserve that could be called back to active duty if/when needed.
As for it "not sitting well with the people risking their lives", that's contrary to the basic premise of the system. The point is not to make people be in the military; that isn't what the veterans in the book cared about and isn't what most real-life vets would want either, and they might not even be risking their lives all that much anyhow. In the book there's the bugs to deal with, but the viability of the political system isn't really related to the presence of ravenous alien invaders. The point is that people have to demonstrate the willingness to engage in a little
responsibility towards society before they're allowed a say in how society will be run. Even that is an exaggeration; in Heinlein's description, everyone has freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and most of the other rights we enjoy (Rico's father refers directly to the fact that a "taxpayer has some rights", and that the schools ought not to be recruiting stations, and clearly has no fear anyone is going to come haul him away for expressing his opinion), they only thing that non-citizens can't do is actually exercise political power
directly by voting or running for office.
In regards to "handing out voting based on killing ability" that's just silly. In
Starship Troopers the logistical train of the military has been handwaved away by Heinlein's technological advances for the most part, but even there, attempting to quantify "killing ability" is pretty silly. Like real life, the soldiers come from all over the place and as long as they're able to psychologically handle combat, there's no measurable difference in "killing ability" between them anyhow.
The only place where personal ability to kill is really important is in special forces and infantry-type units where face-to-face killing at fairly close ranges (rifle range or less) is likely to occur. Even there, the ability of the soldier to work as part of a team, both following orders and exercising initiative, judgement, and passing information back
up the chain of command are far more important than "killing ability". Why do I care about the "killing ability" of a truck driver, water-purification specialist, communications specialist, medic, chaplain's assistant, radar operator, or heck, even a tank crewman? They only need to have enough to defend themselves; even in the case of the tank crewman, his tank is what has the killing ability. He only needs to be able to drive it, load the gun, or engage targets with it. A test for "killing ability" is silly; it could never be quantified well enough to be measured and even if it could it would not be a good way to select the best soldiers.
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